Worth changing PSU?

[Papa Lazarou]

I have been experiencing some problems in Crysis on high detail settings. It regularly crashes back to the desktop. It does not seem to have any problems with frame rates at these settings but its unstable. Medium detail works OK however.

I am using a Tagan EasyCon 430w PSU which is a few years old now. I didn't really research it much at the time but thought that they were supposed to be a "good make". Looking through some reviews now (http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story2&reid=8), it seems they weren't that good, with poor voltage regulation a noted issue. Anyway, according to the Gigabyte monitoring software, the 12v voltage drops a little under 12v with just the CPU under 100% load. I'm not sure how to find out if its dropping any more while both CPU and GPU are under load while the games running, but I suspect it could be.

So all in all would you change the PSU? And secondly any recommendations that don't cost the earth? I was looking at OCZ's StealthXtreme 600W or maybe a Corsair VX450W (really this is capable of more than 450W (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/540/10)).

Thanks

EDIT I thought the spec was in my profile somewhere but can't find it so..

Mild overclocked Core i5 750
Gigabyte P55M-UD2 mobo
4gb PC12800 DDR3
1Tb Samsung F1
Optiarc DVD burner
Pallit 9800GT 512mb
Lian Li case
Tagan 430W Easycon PSU

[wonderlust]

What is the rest of the system spec?

[Papa Lazarou]

Have added it now sorry :)

[RawZ]

I have the Corsair VX 450 - great PSU! Had for near a year now and not had any probs with high loads and overclocks. One time, i had the older hotter X4 955 clocked at 3.9Ghz with a heavily overclocked GTX 280.. ran into no issues at all. Quiet too. I read a review once whereby they tested the PSU to it's limits seeing what it can provide - they found it can produce upto 560W and an extra 10AMPs! Amazing price for such a cracking small PSU.

[Papa Lazarou]

Cheers. The review I linked to might be the one you are thinking of (they tested it to 570W still operating at above 80% efficiency!). The OCZ 600W model (made by FSP) has a decent review (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/451/10) as well, better than the 500W model in the same range. Cost wise that is about the same as the Corsair VX450W. Hmm, I'm leaning towards the Corsair due to its better efficiency, and because its made by Seasonic who seem to have a better reputation than FSP all in all.

Any tips on how I can find if the PSU is definately causing my issues, short of changing it and finding out?

[GentleGiant]

You can try unplugging anything you do not need for the game that is drawing power, CD/DVD drives, floppy, extra HDDs, pretty lights etc; and see if the game is more stable.

There is a very good chance it is the psu BUT are you using a surge protected mains supply??

Washing machines, irons etc, can all send spikes through the mains that can cause all sorts of problems, my new iron buggered up my home cinema amp until I fitted a surge protector and an old washing machine would regularly trip out one of my old PCs

[Will]

I would try running it on Furmark....just to make sure it's not the GPU that can't handle Crysis :thumb:

[GentleGiant]

Another thought, is the GFX card over heating?

Have you inspected the heatsink and fan to make sure they are clean and not clogged up with dirt.

Sometimes more is less, if you have temperature sensors, try varying the speed of any fans fitted while watching the temps;I found that slowing DOWN one of my case fans gave me better airflow and cooled my system better, it was interfering with the airflow through the GFX card heatsink, causing it to stay inside the case and heat everything up

[Papa Lazarou]

OK, I've ran Furmark and left it go for an hour or so. No problems, but GPU temp did settle around 80 degrees (idles at 48). Is this OK? Spec allows up to 105. The heatsink on the GPU is an "orb" style one (not in an enclosure) and is clean.

The case is a compact one that takes a full ATX mobo, and means I had to use a low profile Scythe Shuriken CPU cooler. It has 2 x 120mm case fans and seems to have decent airflow (it blows HOT air out of the side vent when under load). I'll do some experiments with the fan speed though.

Thanks for the help so far :)

[gray.woodford]

Mild overclocked Core i5 750
Gigabyte P55M-UD2 mobo
4gb PC12800 DDR3
1Tb Samsung F1
Optiarc DVD burner
Pallit 9800GT 512mb
Lian Li case
Tagan 430W Easycon PSU

Just looking at your tag and it says that your cpu is overclocked, have you ran stability test on it at all to make sure its stable under load? prime95 ect.

Have you monitored your voltages with hardware monitor or similar program?

I have a legit copy of crysis and it runs nicely but after updating it to 2.1 i always get the game crash on the menu screen for me, everytime. If i change any settings when it saves it will crash, you have to reload it then it will be fine and would have saved any changes you made but mann its soo annoying!!

[gray.woodford]

My mates got that palit card, very good cards for the money dude